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Xavier Pascal Coste (26 November 1787, Marseille - 8 February 1879) was a French architect.

Life

His father was one of the leading joiners in Marseille. Showing intellectual and artistic promise, he began his studies in the studio of Penchaud, architect of the département and the municipalité. In 1814, he was received into the Beaux-Arts in Paris. His time in Paris was a pivotal one in his life - there he met the geographer Edme François Jomard, who put him in touch with the viceroy of Egypt, Mehmet Ali, who took Coste on as his architect in 1817.

In 1825 Coste returned to France with an impressive series of drawings of the architecture of Cairo, but he soon went to Egypt once again at Mehmet Ali's request, where Mehmet Ali made him chief engineer for Lower Egypt. Coste remained there for four years, during which time he accumulated many sketches, but he found the Egyptian climate difficult and returned to France in 1829. There he became a professor of architecture at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, thanks to the links he had kept up with Penchaud. He remained in this post until 1861, when he was one of the founder members of the intellectual centre known as the Athénée.

In parallel with these activities he travelled around France and to Germany, Belgium and Tunisia and produced several authoritative works on architecture - his Architecture arabe (1827) earned him a place on the French king's embassy to the Shah of Iran. In Iran Coste and the painter Eugène Flandin were authorised to visit the ruins of Ecbatana, Bishtun, Taq-e Bostan, Sarpol-e Zahab, Pasargadae and Persepolis, where he made many sketches. On his return via Baghdad, he saw the ruins of Seleucia, Ctesiphon and Babylon. He continued via Nineveh, to which the archaeologist Paul Émile Botta was also travelling to begin his excavations.

His middle eastern journey aroused the interest of Louis-Philippe I and gained Coste the post of chief architect of Marseille in 1844. In 1846, the president of the Chambre de Commerce, M. Luce, commissioned from Coste the Bourse on Marseille's Canebière. Coste was also the originator of two other architectural projects in Marseille - the construction of the faculté aux allées de Meilhan, and a museum with château d'eau at Longchamp. He also began construction on the abattoir d'Arenc, only completed in 1851.

A tireless traveller, even aged over 80 he visited Spain, Ireland, Germany, Austria, Hungary, Russia and Italy. He left 30 albums of drawings on his death, now held at the Bibliothèque de Marseille, though some of his essays were never published. Towards the end of his life he was made an officer of the Légion d'honneur. He died aged 92 and was buried at the cimetière Saint-Pierre in Marseille.

Buildings

• Église Saint-Lazare, Marseille, 1833
• Église Saint-Joseph, Marseille, 1833
• Église de Saint-Barnabé, Marseille, 1846
• Église de Mazargues, Marseille, 1851
• Palais de la Bourse (Marseille)
• Pavillons of the cours Saint-Louis in Marseille

Works

Published

• Carte de la Basse-Égypte, dédiée à Mohammed Aly, par P. C., dressée d'après les itinéraires et les relevés, 1818-1827, s.l.n.d., v. 1830, in-4°.
• Notice sur un dolmen qui existe à Draguignan, with Audiffret, edited by Barlatier-Feissat and Demonchy, s. d., br., in-8°.
• Architecture arabe ou monuments du Kaire, mesurés et dessinés de 1818 à 1826, edited by Firmin et Didot, 1837, gd. in-f°, 70 plates.
• Voyage en Perse, with Flandin, edited by Gide and Baudry, 1851, 2 vol. in-8°, and 6 in-f° of which 5 of plates and 1 of notes.
• Monuments modernes de la Perse mesurés, dessinés et décrits, edited by Morel, 1867, gd. in-f°, 71 pl. notes and col.
• La Cathédrale de Saint-Pétersbourg. La future cathédrale de Marseille, edited by Olive, 1874, br., in-8°.
• Palais de la Bourse de Marseille, as above
• Mémoire d'un artiste, as above
• Notes et souvenirs de voyage (1817-1877), edited by Cayer, 1878, 2 vol. in-8°, portr.

Unpublished

• Itinéraire de l'Ambassade française en Perse, sous M. le comte de Sercey, et des excursions scientifiques des deux artistes attachés à cette mission, (2 volumes of text with images and 9 atlases of plates)
• Monuments d'Europe... dessins... réunis... de 1832 à 1872..., 11 vol. avec 1187 pièces, relatives à la Grande-Bretagne, les États scandinaves, les empires russe, allemand, austro-hongrois, la Suisse, la Berlgique, la Hollande, l'Espagne et l'Italie.
• Monuments de France... 1828-1876..., 1 volume with 1491 plates.
• Monuments de l'Afrique septentrionale (rel. à l'Égypte, les États barbaresques et l'Espagne), 8 volumes with 1253 plates.

External links

• Template:Fr icon Institut national d'histoire de l'art : COSTE, Pascal-Xavier

Template:BD

• French architects
• People from Marseille